miles mcpherson in his book, do something!: make your life count says, “without prayer, we have
no relationship with GOD.” you need to
talk with someone to have a relationship with them and prayer is our way of
talking with GOD.
the word “prayer” is mentioned seven
times here in james 5.13-20. that’s what
it’s about. prayer. there is tremendous power in prayer. prayer is the greatest privilege of the CHRISTian
life, being able to talk to GOD, and it’s the greatest power in the CHRISTian
life. what prayer can do is what GOD can
do. anything that GOD can do can be done
through prayer.
verse 16 of james 5 (niv) says, the
prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. so that is what we are
going to be looking at here on the front porch.
JESUS said, the things that i do, you’ll do also even greater works. how
do you do greater works than JESUS?
JESUS said that, it’s by prayer. anything you need, you pray for. it’s our greatest responsibility. it’s probably our greatest failure in the CHRISTian
life.
james, in this passage, mentions
some specific times when i really need to pray.
one is when i am hurting
emotionally. james 5.13 (niv), is
any one of you in trouble? he should
pray.
now the word trouble here in greek literally
means, “to suffer misfortune, to be in distress”. in the nt book of timothy it’s translated
“hardships”. he’s talking about internal
distress caused by external circumstances.
it may be a financial crisis, a
relational crisis, something on the outside, your heart is breaking, tension is
at an all-time high, when life gets hard.
now james here is referring back to verse 12 where he says, above all, my brothers, do not swear.
when you’re under tension, that’s
when you’re tempted to swear. when you
have distress in your life you have two alternatives – swear or prayer. verse 12 or verse 13. two alternatives – swear or prayer. it is your choice.
just a thought from the front porch…
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